Or “Why are you freaking out all of a sudden?”
I deleted everything I originally wrote for this blog post because what was true when I wrote it isn’t true now.
The original pep talk was meant to be an encouraging butt slap as you jogged out onto the field of life mid game. But the game is cancelled. All the sports are. Life as we know it is cancelled until further notice.
What that leaves many of us with is our spouses — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without reprieve.
In the beginning, when all the rhythms and routines I’d built my days around were crumbling like paper pillars, I was hopeful and optimistic about what this would do for my marriage.
I was excited about having more time with Jeff at home and thrilled about all the nap time sex we would have.
As we close out our third week of being together all.the.time, I am not having fun and we are definitely not having “all the nap time sex.”
We snap at each other at least a half dozen times every day. We are not our best, most ambitious selves. Every time Jeff chews within ear shot, my soul dies a little. When I see him laying on the couch while I peel a screaming toddler away from an electrical outlet, my eyebrows spontaneously catch fire, which he does not see. After asking him to do some chore several times, very calmly, I inevitably snap and am met with “Why are you freaking out all of a sudden?”
Because I am an unreasonable taskmaster whose sole mission in life is to irritate you, that’s why.
(To be clear: living with me is no easy task, but this is my blog so I’ll tell my story how I want. Just know that all I’ve shared here is “Jeff approved” and if you want the dirt on me, I’ll give you his number)
I cannot stress this enough: we are not having a great time.
Certainly there are golden moments. Every day — at least once, but often more — I forget for a few minutes that so much of the fabric of my life has unraveled and is now a tangled mess. We laugh at a meme, share a long hug, talk long after the lights are out, sit on the porch in comfortable silence or close together on the couch.
In the good moments, it’s easy to see that I married the person I want to be quarantined with. It’s in the hard moments, when we’re both grumpy and overwhelmed and a little depressed, that we learn to love better, to give grace more generously, to forgive more quickly. All of this brings me to my point.
It’s okay if quarantining with your spouse isn’t fun. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
The other day we FaceTimed my Nana and when we asked where Papa was she said “He’s in his office. We’ve spent most of the day on opposite sides of the house. You can talk to him next time.” Friends, my grandparents have been married for almost 60 years. They have been living with each other’s quirks and oddities and toenail clippings for most of their lives at this point and they are as over being quarantined together as we are.
So with that in mind, I leave you with this little benediction, these words of blessing, to carry you through another week:
May this week bring you chances to give heaps of grace and practice forgiveness and may you lean into the Holy Spirit for the wisdom to see and the courage to act.
May you open yourself let God reveal what needs revealing and refine what needs refining.
May the thread of intimacy knit you closer together.
May the work that God is doing in this dark and hidden place bear fruit to last a lifetime. Amen.